Not A Cooks Blog ... Mastering French Cuisine With Julia Child ... (Once A Week): Series Three: Part Five - Cordon Bleu

One of my fond childhood memories involves flicking through my mother's collection of the Cordon Bleu weekly magazines. Glancing over the recipes, my delight was with the photo's. Here I could admire the fashions of the day, the presentation of the food and I always looked out for those few shots which included the cordon bleu instructors hands shaping up some culinary delight . One of my favourite photo's would have to be the front cover of course #11. The combination of human interest with a young happy woman preparing food dressed in a crisp white shirt wearing a gingham apron may have been the selling point. But the arrangement of fresh vegetables at the front and that blue wall at the back that so nicely matches the apron could have been the tipping point of making this THE most favourite photo.
#11 was themed around the "cold table". My children reacted in disgust at the scenes for pressing a tongue and the description of jellied game read aloud to them truly did traumatise them. The combination of pigeon, rabbit, wings of a hare, and pheasant seemed more fitting for a witches brew! However they did believe that the 3 course dinner party choice for that week sounded more appealing. This included "potage bonne femme" with croutons, sauté of beef with port and mushrooms, creamed potatoes and for dessert, Tangerine mousse.
Highlights of this meal included the beef cooked in the port, which gave it quite a different taste to the likes of a boeuf a la bourguignonne or a herb infused casserole.
The Tangerine mousse became an Orange mousse as I couldn't source a tangerine. The mousse used gelatine ... a product I have not had much experience with. I had brought a new packet of gelatine but I found an old one in the pantry. Reading the package which stated that this product would remain imperishable if stored in an air tight container I took reassurance that despite being over 10 years of age it would be fine... however my confidence dropped when I was mixing the gelatine into the rest of the ingredients. Supposedly the mixture would start to thicken... it wasn't. I had a flashback... the old packet of gelatine had not been in an air tight container and even worse the packet have been open to the air - had it perished? Luckily my husband who had played with gelatine whilst making tellytubbies marshmallow for the girls when they were little, came to my rescue. I proceed to make the gelatine mix again with the freshly purchased product and indeed everything went to plan.

It was a good hearty family meal. Comparing notes at the table we extended the entertainment to attempting to recreate the photo of the plated main. I had even brought over priced gourmet carrots to attempt to match. And in relation to recreating my favourite photo scene... I was a long way off, with dirty pots, pans and cooking equipment everywhere and no matching blue wall or gingham apron!